Sultanahmet Mosque

About Sultanahmet Mosque

Historic mosque located in Istanbul, Turkey, also known as Blue Mosque

The Sultan Ahmed Mosque, popularly known outside Turkey as the Blue Mosque, is Istanbul's most famous mosque and one of the great monuments of Ottoman architecture, the defining image of the city with its great dome and six minarets. Sultan Ahmed I built it between 1609 and 1617 to the design of Sedefkar Mehmed Agha, a pupil of Mimar Sinan, on the site of the Byzantine imperial palace beside the ancient Hippodrome and directly across from Hagia Sophia, whose grandeur it was meant to rival. It was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1985 as part of the Historic Areas of Istanbul. The mosque follows the classical Ottoman layout: a central dome over the prayer hall surrounded by four semi-domes, fronted by a large arcaded courtyard with an ablution fountain and flanked by six minarets, an exceptional number at the time. Inside, more than twenty thousand Iznik tiles and painted floral motifs in predominantly blue tones cover the walls, giving the mosque its popular name, while over two hundred stained-glass windows light the hall; the finely carved marble mihrab and the minbar beside it are visible from almost every part of the building. The külliye includes the tomb of Ahmed I, a madrasa and other buildings in varying states of preservation. The mosque remains in active use, with the five daily prayers held here and the halls filling on Fridays and in Ramadan.

Where:

Istanbul, Türkiye